Day 5 Gastro Fiasco

I am writing this blog retrospectively.  Some events are a little hazy as so much has happened in the last 2 days, but I shall attempt to recount the events as accurately as possible. I shall cover Day 5 in one blog, and Day 6 in another.

Day 5 dawned with James entering my room and informing me that he was the first of us to succumb to the dreaded deli-belly.  He had spent the night in the bathroom vomiting. Drew had forbidden him from waking me up.  What a kind and thoughtful sister she is.  We didn't want to let such a trivial matter spoil our plans for the day included a 8:30am pickup from our hotel followed by a drive to our home stay in Vinh Long.  That's not what I thought was happening, that's what actually happened.  James managed to hold himself in check, and we met our guide and driver.  The driver didn't acknowledge us, but the guide introduced herself as Ni.  Introductions were easy, it was trying to understand anything else that Ni said that was hard.  

We made 2 stops on the way to the home stay.  First stop - incense factory.  We exited the car and walked through some putrid smelling lane ways towards the factory.  The factory consisted of 2 men sitting at machines threading sticks into a machine and catching them on the opposite side of the machine when they had the incense stuff attached to them.  Unfortunately Ni was not able to tell us anything about the process involved so we basically stood and watched a very tanned Vietnamese man carry out this procedure for approximately 10 mins.  James separated himself from the group and proceeded to vomit.  

Second stop was to a tofu factory.  I would love to have found out a little about this process.  The factory looked really interesting.  Unfortunately Ni wasn't sure what was going on and her grasp of English didn't make it easy for her to answer our questions.  "Ni, why do they take the skin from the top of the tofu and dry it on those sticks?"  Answer: "They collect the firewood from the trees."

James separated himself from the group and proceeded to vomit.

Then off to Vinh Long.  No explanation of where we were going or how long the drive would take.  I just told the kids to go with the flow, as any questions directed towards Ni were met with an answer that involved a completely different topic.  

We arrived at Vinh Long, a pretty town that was obviously richer than Can Tho.  It was cleaner and well  maintained, and kinder on the nose than Can Tho.  The highlight of the drive through town - two middle-aged women fighting on the ground while another lady tried to pull them apart.  They were damned hard to pull apart, and that mission was nowhere near accomplished by the time our car passed.  

We were driven to a ferry and taken to the northern bank of the river.  We stood amongst the motorbikes and Ni pushed and shoved us up the front.  I just kept yelling at the kids "Guys, if this thing goes down, get your shoes off, drop your backpacks and swim for your lives." An interesting fact that Linh, our other Mekong guide told us: most people in the Mekong can't swim.  I guess that's the last thing on your mind if you're fighting to feed your family. 

I think those quail eggs in the plastic bags there were the culprits
for the gag-worthy stench that completely enveloped the
township we were about to enter.  Eggs for sale in the sun everywhere!

Once we managed to exit the ferry amongst the roaring motorbikes we had a walk of about 200 meters to get to the home stay.  

As you can see from the photos it was a lovely house. The family was very friendly, and if anyone wanted to go to Vinh Long for the night, I would recommend staying here.  I would have to say, that you'd probably just want to stay here to sleep and eat.  There is really nothing to do except bike ride in the searing heat.  I'm not sure what the going rate of our accommodation was, but an overnight stay includes dinner and breakfast.  The food was beautiful.  

Sadly, Ni was staying the night too.  She felt she had to stay by my side at all times and spent most of the afternoon trying to walk beside me.  I tried to ask about her family and managed to find out her father was a worker and she had a brother and a sister.  She had just finished university, but she was unable understand "What course did you study?" so that was as far as I got.  We were told to rest.  Drew was fine with her laptop and her DVDs.  James lapsed into a sweaty, diseased sleep.  I fell into a disgusting midday sleep in a hammock, and the 3 boys spent a few hours looking at the dam beside the house, waiting for the fish to come up and mouth breathe.  It seems they keep the fish in this dam until they are ready to eat them.  I guess our arrival meant it was time to eat one because two men from the house walked in and caught a mighty big one.

Eventually the boys couldn't stand the boredom anymore and we decided to go for our bike ride.  James had semi-recovered and felt up to a gentle ride in the country.  Ni got herself ready.  She had donned a heavy winter jacket in the car on the way to Vinh Long, and she hadn't taken it off since.  Her clothing consisted on the jacket, jeans, stockings and high-heeled sandals.  We couldn't believe that Ni didn't take her thick winter jacket off as she climbed on her bike.  We all chose our bikes for the ride, and within a minute we were off.  The ride was hideous.  It went on and on and on and on.  It was hot as hell!  James was really unwell.  I had a sweat patch on my pants that made it look like I'd wet myself.  The kids kept falling off the concrete path that doubled as a road for pedestrians and motorbikes.  I estimate we biked for about 20km.  I would describe it as a living hell!  James was swearing and yelling out "I want it to end", my sweat patch kept getting bigger and bigger and Ni still had her woolly jumper on.  As we got to the gates of Nam Thanh James fell off his bike, broke his thongs and sliced his foot open on something in the bushes.  Ni turned around and said "You like?"

We collected ourselves and dried our tears (it was really just me crying) just in time for dinner.  Lovely food.  Way too much, but according to my reading that is the done thing.  Serve the guests too much and don't expect them to eat it all.  James was out of action, but the 5 of us pushed as much of the food into ourselves as we could so we wouldn't seem impolite.

  

James tries to recover between vomits.

Dinner begins with chips and spring rolls.

We tried to help clean up but Ni intervened and insisted we stop.  There wasn't much else to do, so we all got ready for bed.  Lights out about 7.30pm. 

INTERESTING FACTS:

1. Do steal the vomit bags from the plane.  They come in handy.
2. Don't book an organised tour with a guide that stays with you overnight, or perhaps enquire if this is a possibility before paying for the tour.
3. Can Tho is filthy and depressing, but I would highly recommend our tour of the Mekong with Linh Tran (find her on Facebook under University of Can Tho) and our boat driver Hung.
4. Vinh Long looks interesting.  Don't go to the northern side of the river unless you just want to go there to sleep at Nam Thanh the home stay for the night.
5. Don't include a visit to the incense factory on the way from Can Tho to Vinh Long. 
6. Stemitil doesn't work if there is less than half an hour between vomits.

Ni and her woolly jumper.

I managed to sneak this photo of Ni's stockinged shoe.  A bit mean I know, but
extraordinary that she was able to ride a bike in 40 degree heat with that outfit on!